


Detours

by 700wordsAmonth



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F, Family Feels, Homophobic Language, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post 4x06, with no knowledge of what 4b might bring us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27073486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/700wordsAmonth/pseuds/700wordsAmonth
Summary: It's time to start taking steps to right the wrongs made by them and others in the past year and a half.But there are detours, some of them necessary, some harmful, and some for the simple pleasure of paying someone back in their own coin.
Relationships: Nicole Haught & Rachel Valdez (Wynonna Earp TV), Waverly Earp & Rachel Valdez, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught
Comments: 12
Kudos: 86





	Detours

It’s a long shot. Nicole knows it is. Even if Cleo Clanton doesn’t know exactly what happened to her mother and brother, there is no love lost in her for the Earps. But Nicole has to try. She’s a cop, it’s that simple. It’s just who she is.

And there’s a Sheriff missing (dead, but Cleo doesn’t need to know that right now). Which means that there’s a position open. A position for her job, the one Nedley had groomed her for.

So, she has to at least try.

“Excuse me, Miss Clanton,” Nicole announces her presence, knocking on the open door to Cleo’s office at the same time. She will be as respectful as she can be. There's no room for pride or mistakes in this. She needs her job, and the town needs an interim Sheriff that knows what they're doing.

“Miss Haught, what can I do you for?” The joke falls flat, there’s clear worry in Cleo’s expression, bags under her eyes, causing a heavy, guilty stone to weight down on Nicole’s stomach.

What right does she have to apply to a position in the Sheriff department when she knows exactly what happened to the last Sheriff and is keeping it under wraps? What right does she have when she caused the death of Cleo’s mother?

Selfishly, she thinks it was for the best, but it was still murder.

This is bigger than her, though. The whole town has been basically under the law of the Hammurabi code for months. Violence is escalating even when there are no demons involved.

She needs to do _some_ thing.

“I came to apply for a position in the police station. I’ve acted as Sheriff, I’m a trained officer and I know the community. I can help,” she recites the phrase she rehearsed on the way over.

To Nicole’s surprise, Cleo doesn’t laugh at her. She simply watches Nicole.

“Did you bring your resumé?”

Her eyebrows lifted high, Nicole stutters, “I- yes.” She fishes the paper out of her plastic folder and hands it to Cleo.

“I’ll consider you, Miss Haught. Is that all?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

_Well._

_That could have been worse._

Nicole feels lighter. Cleo’s words don’t necessarily mean that she’ll be hired back, but it’s something. A sliver of hope that puts a smile on her lips on her way out of the station.

“And what are you doing here?”

At first, Nicole doesn’t realize that it’s her who’s being spoken to, only noticing once she meets Officer McGuire’s eyes at the reception.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. What are you doing here? You know you don’t belong here anymore, right?" He asks, his tone condescending. "Not that you ever did.”

Honestly, there's too much going on for Nicole to worry about his dislike of her. And she can’t remember ever having any relevant interaction with him that would provoke this.

“This is a public building, Peter, and I’m a citizen of Purgatory. I have a right to be here.”

“You’re not though,” he says, leaving his seat and coming closer to her. “You see, you outsiders can come in and live here, that’s fine. You can even become an officer of the law, though that’s pushing it in my opinion. But Sheriff? You think you know _our_ town and _our_ community because you lived here for a couple of years? You know nothing. Fucking dyke chatting up innocent girls and brainwashing the Sheriff.”

“My, aren’t you a xenophobic, homophobic piece of shit? You don’t deserve to wear that uniform, Peter,” Nicole tells him, her tone dismissive, ready to go on with her day.

And that’s all it takes.

One moment Nicole is turning from him, on the other there’s a fist colliding with her chin.

There’s a fraction of a second during which she’s catching up with just having been punched. Nicole hadn’t expected it despite Peter’s harsh words. She figures maybe she’s been so preoccupied with the dangers the supernatural brings into her life, she’d forgotten that regular, non-magical human beings are capable of reaching her too.

She tastes blood on her tongue and meets his eye. She meets his eye with her fist too, and her punch is more direct and aimed higher.

He falls on the ground.

Nicole straddles him, one fist on his collar and the other ready to turn his lights off. But someone pulls her off him.

She turns and sees a young man, a boy really. Luke, she thinks.

“Go home, miss,” he tells her, moving to stand between her and McGuire.

She looks at Peter on the ground, and he too seems to be unwilling to go for another round.

“Fine.”

_Goddamnit_.

She’d been so hopeful just five minutes ago.

* * *

Nicole does go home, but to her old one. The one she hasn’t been in for almost one year and a half.

She parks in front of the house but doesn’t leave the truck quite yet.

It might be time she sold it, really, she considers. It’s not safe for her to sleep here anymore – and she hasn’t for a long time – and, being engaged to Waverly, she doesn’t think she will ever have to sleep here again. It’s good that she doesn’t have much stuff in this blue house anymore too. Most of the furniture came with the house, anyway. No sentimental value to save.

It should be the work of a weekend, at most. Grab the clothes and sheets she hasn’t brought to the homestead yet, a few pictures that she knows are still hanging on the walls of the living room and that’s basically it. Maybe Wynonna will want some of the furniture for the barn. And the homestead’s couch could probably be replaced. But a weekend, that’s all she needs to put her house on the market.

Nicole finally steps out of the car and notices something red on the side wall of her blue house.

 _Go home faggot,_ is what it reads, bits of the paint already fainter where the weather got to it.

She hasn’t been home in so long… Anyone could have-

“It doesn’t matter,” she says to herself, making her way inside.

She grabs a bucket of water, soap and a solvent and starts washing off the paint.

* * *

Nicole startles when her phone rings. She dries her hands on her pants and takes it from her back pocket.

_Waverly._

She slides her finger upwards on the phone and takes a few steps back, to see from a distance how good of a job she’s done in cleaning the wall.

“Hey baby,” she answers, distracted by the shadow of red paint still visible.

_“Hey sweetie, how did it go? Are you still in town?”_

“Yea… Actually, no. I came to my place to get some stuff. And Cleo said she’d consider me. I guess we’ll see.”

 _“Oh, good. At least it was not a no.”_ Waverly’s voice sounds tentative on the phone, her tone getting higher by the end of the sentence, as if it was a question.

“Yea…,” Nicole replies, her focus already moving away from the conversation again. She’d have to buy some paint and a paint roller.

_“Are you gonna be long?”_

“No. No. I’ll be home in 30.” No point in dwelling here anymore today. Nicole will take a quick shower and put on whatever clothes she still has in this house and then drive home.

_“Okay… Are you okay?”_

“Yea, I’m fine.” And she is. She just… lost a bit of faith after the literal and figurative punches she took today. She thought she was well liked in Purgatory. Thought the problem were the people in power, the ones keeping her from the job she was elected to do. But maybe that’s not quite right. 

_“I’ll see you in a bit, then?”_ Waverly’s voice still sounds worried. Waverly’s always worried about her nowadays. And Nicole is honest enough to admit it’s warranted.

“Yes,” she replies.

_“I love you.”_

“Love you too.”

* * *

The blue truck enters Earp land and parks in front of the homestead’s porch, where Rachel is sitting, drinking kombucha and reading Cujo.

“Waverly, she’s here,” she yells over her shoulder, unwilling to be further distracted from such a tense part of the story.

She’s vaguely aware of Nicole stepping out of the car and of Waverly coming out and stopping by the stairs, not climbing down, her body blocking the sun that had been warming Rachel's legs a second ago.

“Look at me,” she hears the quiet but non-negotiable request. The universal tone that signals someone is in trouble with a loved one.

 _Now_ her interest is picked.

She puts the book down and leans to her left, to better see Nicole and Waverly’s faces.

Waverly is studying Nicole closely, and Rachel then notices the bruise on Nicole’s chin, her lip cut and a little swollen.

Waverly’s thumb brushes lightly over that puffed lip, reverent, then over Nicole’s purple chin and up her jaw, adjusting a strand of red hair behind Nicole’s ear.

“Who did this to you?”

Nicole sighs, but Rachel knows she won’t deny Waverly that. She doesn’t think Nicole can deny Waverly anything, if she’s honest, which is kind of embarrassing in her opinion. But kinda nice too.

“Officer McGuire.”

Waverly rests her forehead on Nicole’s, her left hand cupping the back of Nicole’s neck, massaging the skin and playing with red hair at the same time.

Waverly would burn the whole world down if that could protect Nicole from harm. Rachel knows that because she was told about a lot of what happened before she came to Purgatory, but also because she can see it. Nothing hurts Waverly more than seeing Nicole hurt.

“I will ki-… I will beat him up,” Waverly corrects herself. And yea, threats of death cannot be made as freely as they once were. Not when there’s only one Clanton left.

The thought reminds Rachel of Billy. It makes it hard to swallow.

“There’s no need,” Nicole says, taking Waverly’s hands from her face and holding them lower, at her waist. “I got him better than he got me.”

Waverly’s smile is a little proud, a lot sad.

“Why would he do that?”

“He’s just a jerk, Waves. There’s not much to say, but I can tell you whatever little there is later,” Nicole promises, and kisses Waverly’s lips chastely, an _okay?_ whispered right after it. A peace offering, Rachel believes.

Nicole walks into the house, and Waverly’s sad eyes follow her for the short moments until the door falls closed.

“What are you gonna do?” Rachel asks her, ‘cause she too would like to help Nicole. The woman has struggled for too long.

Waverly sighs before answering. “Give her time, love her, hope that little by little she starts talking to me again… Maybe- Maybe this is good, what happened today. Maybe throwing punches with a butthole is something easier for her to talk about. A small step.”

Waverly then sits beside her on the small bench, their shoulders touching.

“And I will wreck his car. Full on yellow dress and baseball bat, I will wreck that shit ticket’s car,” Waverly completes, a fire in her eyes that wasn’t there seconds before. “Do you wanna come with?”

 _Hell yea_ , Rachel wants to come with.

“Are we going now?” She asks, excited as if it’s Christmas morning.

“No, we can’t today. They just had the fight and there would be no one to attest to Nicole’s innocence if we left the house. But tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll get Wynonna to take Nicole to Shorty’s, and then it will be a party.”

 _Alright!_ Rachel screams inward.

“Alright!” And outward.

Waverly smiles and bumps their shoulders. “Thanks,” she says. “For taking care of her when we were in the garden.”

Suddenly Rachel feels warm, not only on her face, but in her chest too.

“It was a mutual thing.”

Waverly's eyes are pure affection, ready to love whoever loves Nicole.

“I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the prompt by @whumpster-dumpster at https://whumpster-dumpster.tumblr.com/post/180738459087/character-a-tilting-character-bs-chin-up-to-get-a
> 
> The prompt: "Character A tilting Character B’s chin up to get a better look at their face and the evidence of the fight. A delicately thumbs away the streak of blood by B’s mouth, saying nothing as they examine it. After a brief pause, B’s heart skips a nervous beat as A looks them dead in the eyes. Their voice is quiet and tense, their anger barely restrained.
> 
> “Who did this to you?”


End file.
